He could no longer tell his mother I was hysterical, because his mother had heard him.

He could no longer tell my parents I had driven him to it, because my parents had seen the phone bill.

The witnesses were not an audience for his humiliation.

They were the load-bearing structure of my freedom, the thing that made the truth solid enough to build a divorce on.

And there was one more reason, quieter and more personal.

For two years, I had been alone in my growing doubt, isolated in it, made to feel that my suspicions were disloyal or unbalanced.